A Personal Style Experiment

I'm going to start a bit of an experiment. I usually wake up in the morning and spend a good 10 minutes trying to figure out what I'm going to wear that day before I even get out of bed.  This daily time-consuming chore is only alleviated if one has to wear scrubs to work; something I had to do for a hot minute when I worked at an optometrist office.  However, whatever happiness I felt about having an extra 10 minutes of unimpeded sleep was replaced with feelings of being a 1980's single mom complete with a bowl haircut--a cut I got in an effort to be more "fun and hip" at work.  Whoops.

I am now employed at an office where I must dress in what is described as "date casual", something I can totally jive with.  However, lately I've been having a terrible time figuring out what to wear.  So I've decided to pick 20 items total to wear over the next month and see how creative I can be--this includes tops. bottoms, shoes, jewelry, and accessories.  Bottom line: this is really an attempt to distill and streamline my personal style and become effortlessly and awesomely stylish. 

Here are the contestants:

Bottoms from right to left: Yellow skirt-handmade out of old draperies, 2. Long black dress-Anthropologie, 3. White jeans-Urban Outfitters, 4. Full tangerine skirt-handmade out of fabric from Hancock Fabrics.

Tops from right to left: 1. Striped shirt-JCrew, 2. Lilac Tee-Target, 3. Cream flutter top-Urban Outfitters, 4. Watercolor top-Anthropologie, 5. Chambrey button down-Anthropologie, 6. (unpictured) Gray tanktop-Target

Clockwise from top: 1. Black booties-Steve Madden, 2. Panama Hat-Target, 3. Brown wide belt-Anthropologie, 4. Tangerine Sandals-JCrew, 5. White leather belt-Goodwill, 6. (unpictured) Gray loafers-Steve Madden.

That makes 16 items so far.  I figure that leaves 4 different pieces of jewelry and I simply haven't decided which ones I should limit myself to for a month.  I'll figure that out tonight and post the remaining 4 pieces soon.  The experiment starts Monday!

Quote by Francois Sagan

A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off of you.

By Francois Sagan

via The Shotgun Season

Christina Shaffell Photography

From the Train #1

The King of Van Horn

Arrest

Exit 42 @ the Continental Divide

California based artist Christina Shaffell, employs both photography and graphic design to create images that are dusty and full of unspoken stories.  While spending some time in Texas, Christina and I became friends and I have admired her work ever since I've known her.  Maybe it's because neither she nor I are originally from Texas and iconic images, such as cowboys, teepees, and gaming trophies, are still mysterious, foreign, and terribly beautiful.

When I think of Texas, I think of dusty isolation, self-reliance, a like-hell-I-won't attitude, and romantic instability.  Christina has harnessed all these qualities in her photographic series that can be found at Society 6.  I'm hoping to post an interview with Miss Shaffell on Stella & Finn very soon!

Tjitske Photography

 

 

 All photos by Dutch photographer and stylist Tjitske van Leeuwen.

Headdress

For the life of me, I can't remember in what book I found these amazing headdresses; probably an old dusty National Geographic issue in the stacks of the UT library.  The second one didn't scan too well but you can still get the gist of how amazing these are-so much fabric piled into vibrant bouffants.  I think it would be awesome to try this with some fake hair in a future photoshoot.

The New Gypsies--Iain McKell

British photographer Iain McKell spent 10 years following a band of Travelers around Britain.  The photographs he took of their lives over the years are beautiful and haunting.  McKell has collected his work into a book entitled The New Gypsies and I would adore to get my hands on a copy of it.

I first came to know McKell's series through the blog Black*Eiffel and have loved it ever since; the colors are amazing and it completely romanticizes my well-known desire to travel.  My man and I just returned to Austin, Texas after living on the road for a year and a half in our 54 Chevy.  I kind of documented it in our travel blog but for some reason could never keep it up on a regular basis.  Of course, now that it's all over, I wish I had documented the whole thing better.  

There's a nice interview with Iain McKell at AnOther Mag.